


help me hold onto you

by ameliajessica



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Emotional Sex, Episode: s03e05 A Life in the Day, Grieving, Happy Ending, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 01:30:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20368420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliajessica/pseuds/ameliajessica
Summary: "Arielle, in the end, flickers out."Grief, healing and learning to hold onto each other, after. A 3x05 interlude.





	help me hold onto you

**Author's Note:**

> first of all i just want to thank everyone who read and was so nice about the other, and first magicians' fic i ever posted! the reception was kinda wild, particularly in how much people were after a happy ending (innuendo?) for mike. can't promise that i'll get to that, but for what was supposed to be a one-off, the feedback certainly set the gears in motion for what that kind of s1 would look like. anyway! just really, really it has been wonderful to get so much love from a fandom that has given me so much, especially in light of That Finale. ahem.
> 
> title is from 'the archer' by taylor swift, which spawned the original idea for this fic because as all intellectuals know, this song is about eliot waugh to quentin coldwater FACTUALLY. as it so happens, i finally finished it the day the album came out. so if that's a venn diagram of your interests, hey! let's be friends!

Arielle, in the end, flickers out. Over something stupid - something neither of them can really diagnose, at least not until it’s too late, but it starts small. A cough here, a persistent sheen of sweat there. In true Arielle fashion, she takes too long to take herself out of commission, at which point where she does take a few days to rest, Q is already beginning to spiral into worry. 

Arielle scoffs at him, calls him soft, a sap who is going to sprout white hairs if he doesn’t let his wife have a cold in peace. Eliot only really starts to worry when Arielle looks at him, once, deliberate, over Q’s shoulder when he shudders with a sob onto her chest. She pats his back, patiently and playfully exasperated - _ “oh Quentin,” _ \- but her eyes tell Eliot a different story. 

_ You need to look after him _. It’s stern. It’s serious. Eliot wants to argue, that she’s too stubborn to... to... he won’t even think the word. But they have an unspoken understanding that even more so than Teddy, the two of them are in this for Quentin. 

Well, it was spoken once - on their wedding night. Eliot stood beside them as they danced around each other, until falling away, fighting the sting in his throat. He thought neither would notice - he’d _ waited _ until he was sure they wouldn’t, but Arielle had paused, looking at Quentin, and whispering something in his ear and _ shooing _ him to the hut. Then, she grabbed Eliot’s hands, eyes bright and happy and shiny with tears. 

“I’m going to need you too,” she said. “We both are. Q, he— you have no idea how much. And I don’t care, Eliot. Eliot, I’m glad. I’m so _ happy _.”

She knew about the two of them. She knew even though Eliot and Q hadn’t really been together since Arielle came into the picture - and even then, it’d been a few eager fumbles under the cover of moonlight. Q had been seeking some sweet relief, something to get him to sleep one more time and then be able to grind his brain into dust trying to solve the puzzle the next morning. Eliot had been happy to give it, even as he knew he wasn’t so much unwinding as he was taking any scraps Q would offer - and licking the plate clean, as it were. Asking for any more was selfish, and stupid. And when Arielle was here, Q clearly had no need for… _ that _ anymore, so they stopped. He’d made peace with it. On their wedding night, Eliot sent Arielle off to their bedroom with only a little kernel of hurt nestled in his chest and a kiss to her forehead. “Sweet girl,” he’d said. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

(That he would stay even if it he wasn’t needed, even if it felt like it would be the thing that killed him, slowly, he didn’t mention.)

And then, when Teddy was conceived, Eliot had been there. After being invited by Arielle - her smug smile, the room lit only by candlelight, and her tugging them both by their hands - all his sexual prowess melted away and he was left watching, still, with shallow breaths from the foot of the bed. He felt too much the outsider, worried to move and break the spell he wasn’t supposed to be a part of in the first place. 

But Arielle tangled her fingers with Eliot’s, pulling him closer, his chest bumping with Quentin’s back. “Just like this,” she breathed out, her voice hitching to complete bliss. “Just like this.”

Q had long been far gone by this point. As Arielle had undressed, his eyes flickered between her face and Eliot’s face, his heaving chest, looking like he wanted—_ something _—but decided against it, moving over Arielle and giving his full attention there. Eliot’s entire brain lit up at the feeling of Q’s warm skin on his again, but he imagined Q, lost in Arielle, wouldn’t even notice. Or, Q, tender boy he was, at the feeling of being held from the front and back would just fall apart instantly. But Q had sat up, still inside Arielle, and actually slowed down. Stretching out the moment, and pressing back against him as he kept moving his hips. The first sign of permission he could touch or be touching Eliot and he hadn’t hesitated. 

“My boys,” Arielle laughed, on her elbows, watching as Q turned his face into Eliot’s throat, needy. Letting out whines Eliot remembered. Eliot put his hand around the back of Quentin’s neck, slotting back in there like the last piece of a mosaic, and Q huffed out, strained, like even relief was painful. 

Arielle fell back against the bed, and her grip tightened on his fingers. Eliot didn’t even need to look at her. “She’s almost there, Q,” he murmured, closing his eyes against the feeling of Q there, with him as much as he was with her, and making noises that were all Eliot’s. Noises he hadn’t been making when it was just him and Arielle. This was about Eliot’s touch, his voice, and Eliot felt drunk with it. “You’ve been so good. She’s so close. Hold on just a little bit.” 

Q nodded, his hair tickling with the movement, arms thrown back around Eliot’s neck, as he thrusted. 

“Just a little bit,” Eliot said again, coaxing them both now. 

Arielle’s hand flew out of his, slamming against the headboard, gasping for breath and squirming below them. 

Eliot used his free hands to wrap his arms around Quentin’s middle, one hand splayed against his heart. Said, “You can let go, Q,” and held him through it as he yelled and shuddered and Eliot held tight, tight, tight until Q finally sagged in the embrace. While Q caught his breath, Arielle looked up at Eliot through her eyelashes - smug and a little knowing. _ See _ , she said, _ see how good it is when you’re here. See how much he needs you. _

Q had leant up, one hand on Eliot’s cheek to turn his face for a kiss and the other reaching lower. It was only after, _ much _ after, that any of them remembered they hadn’t gotten around to casting the contraceptive spell. 

And now, on the same bed, over Q’s shoulder, she sends him another look. A look to remind him exactly what both of them had promised the other. And Arielle wouldn’t even approach anything near the desperate, determined plea in her eyes if she didn’t want Eliot to truly hear it. If she didn’t believe....

She’s gone by the next morning. 

Q goes to wake her up — the two in separate rooms, she had insisted, because she didn’t want to pass it on to him, or Eliot, or Teddy — and learns he’s never going to shake her back to life. Eliot rushes in when he hears Q’s shouting, frozen to his spot in the doorway. Q is clutching her body to his, wailing. It is the worst thing Eliot has ever heard in his life - the kind of broken, hollow grief he’s felt, but never allowed himself to express, and Q just lets it out, a primal noise being ripped from him. Eliot leaves, scooping Teddy up with him and takes Teddy away because he knows that’s what Q would want. They go to Arielle’s aunt’s and he makes stories and songs for inanimate blocks of wood, even as Teddy hands him the tiny doll Arielle had carved for him and he chokes on a sob of his own. She had been knitting the doll a little vest just yesterday, to pass the time, when she got frustrated with her sweaty, trembling hands and threw it on the bedside table. It is still there, threaded through the needles. He plays with Teddy even though the longer he goes without being with Q is another terrified, faster beat of his heart. He won’t want Teddy to hear him, he tells himself. Teddy will stay with Arielle’s aunt and then someone from the village will come with him to move... well, to move Arielle. 

During the walk back he counts and makes his breathing even. Tries to tell himself Q will still be there. _ Obviously _ still there. He wouldn’t be gone - he wouldn’t done anything stupid, anything _ permanent _... 

Q is cross-legged on the mosaic. Eliot just about doesn’t fall to his knees in relief. Stumbles to him. 

He should say something. He’s— well, there isn’t really a word for what he is to Quentin. But Q is everything to Eliot, along with Teddy, would be everything even if they had more than each other on this quest, and he should say_ something, anything _... 

“Q...” 

Q barely looks at Eliot. Says, “I can’t sleep in that bed,” and curls up on the tiles. 

*

He’d been around for moments when Q’s brain gave up on working for him — then, at random, discounting how the mosaic would drive anyone into spiral. It’s how they’d started sleeping together: Eliot, using the only tools at his disposal for solving problems, and Q -_ lonely, touched-starved Q_ \- would lie back and think of Fillory, as it were. Or, more accurately, actually have a moment to _ not _ have to think of Fillory. He didn’t care that it was— different, for Q. Eliot knew Q wasn’t about to proudly represent a letter in the acronym, but he was flexible enough on the Kinsey scale that he was able to tug at Eliot to bring him closer, to choke out _ his _ name before he came, and that was good enough for Eliot. He'd made peace with that.

_ You can’t fuck this problem away _ , his mind sneers at him, the third week into Q’s catatonic state. At first Q, true to his word, had stayed far away from their bedroom - wouldn’t even go into the house, so Eliot brought food and water to him and fed them to him at the necessary intervals throughout the day. By day, Eliot busies himself with the mosaic, for lack of anything else to do - and because maybe, _ maybe _ , he could do this for Q. He could solve it, by himself, and save the day and - _ who is he fucking trying to kid if he said he was dreaming otherwise _ \- get the boy. By night, he curls himself around Q and tries not to cry into the nap of his neck. 

It’s this ugly thing, the way Eliot mourns Arielle — he mourns someone to help him with Q, someone better; he mourns Arielle herself, how she made everything easy and bright and if he had to watch Quentin be married to someone, at least it was someone who wanted him around; he mourns the mother Teddy deserves. He’s jealous of how much Q mourns her, to once again have to watch Q love someone _(else)_ so much it tears him apart. And worst of all, _ the worst fucking thing about him _ , he’s _ grateful _ . Grateful it had been her and not Q, or indeed Teddy, the perfect little un-immunised ball of joy they have running around. But doing this without Quentin - doing _ anything _with him not in the world at all, is the only thing worse than having to watch the disease in his brain make him turn his back on the world. On his own life. 

He can’t fuck this problem away, this real, _ tangible _ grief, but he convinces himself sleeping together - literally just sleeping together - helps. _ Lonely, touch-starved, _ lovely _ Q _\- Eliot can give him this, at least, he thinks, holding onto Q, every night, and hopes for an easier morning for them both. 

But it gets worse. Eliot leaves to trade one day, and then comes back and panics so intensely for a second his brain goes white. Because Q isn’t on the bed, and he isn’t responding to him screaming his name, and he’s not behind the house and he has no idea how he would begin to search these woods. Then he finds Q and hates that he panicked, because he knows Q would hate to know_ that’s _what he thought. But he still thinks it, even when he finds Q, because Q is facing Arielle’s side of the bed, tears pouring down his face like he doesn’t even notice they’re falling, endless. 

It’s not just the regressive, self-destructive nature of the act, though that’s obviously part of it. It’s that it’s a clear message, and one Eliot has no intention of pushing back against. He may be a masochist ("_ you know exactly what it means," _ he had said once, when he knew Q wouldn't know) , but he’s not totally clueless. Eliot and his nightly spoonings aren’t helpful or welcoming. Eliot at all, probably. Well, duh, right? He doesn’t want _ Eliot _ . He wants Arielle. He knows it’s partially Q’s brain - the brain that has its moments of wanting to ruin everything - but what exactly is he supposed to do here? Drag Q out from under the covers and _ force _ his human contact upon him? Burn that fucking bed to ash? Fucking _ leave _ , since all he does is make everything _ worse _ , apparently? Trust Eliot to make mourning your wife somehow _ harder _.

“I wish I was enough for you.” He doesn’t mean to say it out loud. Even he knows that it's a pointless, petty thing to say, but he’s been this left this raw nerve who has to voice how he’s feeling or he might actually die. He storms out as soon as he says it, ashamed and relieved, to have finally fucking put it out there. He has no idea if Q even heard it through his fugue state, but if he did, now he can know at least. Know how selfish Eliot been this whole time. Know that Eliot doesn’t know how to love something without twisting it against him. 

_ I’m failing you _ , he thinks to Arielle, looking up at the sky, aching for a cigarette or a drink or a dirty screw with a stranger, _anything_ _ . I’m sorry. I’m sorry. He needs you. He needs you more than he needs me. I’m failing _. 

*

He brings in reinforcements. As in, he brings Teddy home. When he gets to the house, Teddy is on the front lawn of his great aunt’s, yanking the grass from its roots, expression angry and sad in equal measure - the face Eliot knows so well on his father. The idea is to get him for Q, that it will somehow bring him strength, but the sight of Teddy feels like air filling_ Eliot’s_ lungs again. Eliot _ loves _him, and is terrified and grateful of how much. 

“Where did you _ go _ ?” Teddy demands, trying to kick out of Eliot’s hug. “Where’s _ Daddy _?”

He just can’t get this parenting thing right. Hell, he didn’t even really mean to get into it again. He could have settled for being Uncle Eliot, giver of great tummy kisses and helper of Daddy with the colorful tiles. But when Teddy was brought into the world, Arielle introduced him as, “Eliot, this is Teddy. Teddy, this is your Papa.”

And there it was - this new purpose, even as he worried every day he would fuck it up. He worried, but there was Q and Arielle and Arielle’s family and there was _ Teddy _ , this wonderful, miraculous, tiny _person_. So, so easy to love he would forget what had been so scary about it. Smarter than anyone could have expected, just like his mother; sensitive and observant like his Daddy. 

And like his Papa, shockingly vindictive when he was hurting. He pushes people away - and is very much in a literal phase of it.

“I’m sorry,” Eliot says, broken, still reaching for his son. “I’m so sorry, my love. Hey, no, please don’t… Teddy, please come here, don’t be like that…”

He can’t help it. He starts crying. In front of his damn kid. Like taking a tantrum too personally is anything close to what Teddy is going through, or Quentin, back at the house. Like it’s fair to make any of this about him. No wonder his kid is starting to hate him. It was only a matter of time.

Teddy’s face is scrunched up. He’s never seen Papa cry, and there’s a clear negotiation happening in his head. He’d wanted Papa to be upset as he was, _ to _upset him, but now it had happened, it clearly wasn’t all he thought it would be cracked up to be. 

“You _ left _,” he says, chin wobbling. He holds it high, trying to keep his own tears from falling. It was a funny thing they’d noticed he did at first, when he scraped his knee and didn’t want to be a “baby” about it until Q told him young men were allowed to cry too. He usually runs to Q when he needs a cry, and it makes Eliot feel all the more useless. 

“I— didn’t mean to,” Eliot says, wiping his own face. “I just didn’t want you to see us right now, like this. I thought it would be nicer for you to be here with your aunt.”

“That’s stupid. I want to see you.”

Eliot huffs out a laugh. The first in so, so long. Teddy - Teddy was the answer to everything, every time. Every fight, every moment of wanting to give up on everything was saved by Teddy, running to him and Quentin. Why didn’t he think of this sooner? “You’re right. I’m stupid. You have the stupidest Papa in the whole world, and I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?”

Teddy fidgets, apparently thinking it over. “Okay.” 

“Okay,” Eliot repeats gently, and wants to cry again. “Okay, let’s go home, yeah? Daddy’s waiting.”

“And not Mama,” Teddy says, watching Eliot’s reaction. It’s devastating - like he’s waiting for Eliot to prove him wrong. 

Eliot swallows. “Not Mama. Mama…” _ Fuck _, he’s not remotely equipped for this conversation.

“Auntie Hilda told me,” Teddy says, looking at the floor. “She says that Mama was hurting a lot, and we don’t know why, but even though we miss her we should be glad she’s not hurting anymore.”

“Yeah. Auntie Hilda’s right.” 

“Do you miss her?”

“So much,” Eliot says, voice catching. He does. So much. “Do you?”

Teddy’s chin trembles, just a little. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Even though she was hurting.”

“Yeah,” is all Eliot can say, feeling shitty he doesn’t have more words. Neither does Teddy, who folds himself, finally, into Eliot’s arms, and they hold onto each other. Oh, sweet, sweet Teddy. Just the smell of his hair makes the world make sense again.

Their hands swing together on the way back. It turns out staying with Auntie Hilda was a lot of fun, after all. Teddy has a lot of stories about new plants he’s learnt about and cakes he’s helped to bake and being taught the names of birds. The kind of kid shit he’d always thought would be mind-numbingly boring - maybe it would be, even, if it weren’t _ his _kid. Instead he gasps and coos at all the right places, making Teddy more and more animated. “What a smart boy you are,” he gushes, only half putting it on. He really does think Teddy is possibly the first and only true child genius, but he also says it because of how Teddy reacts to the praise, preening under it while also giggling shyly. A perfect combination of both him and Q. Maybe he’s the best parts of them. Maybe only the best. He can only hope.

*

The thing about depression, for Quentin, is that it is so familiar sometimes he welcomes it. He fights against it so constantly and when it crept up again, it was almost a relief. An old friend visiting, saying, _ it’s okay, Quentin, you can stop. Let’s just stop _ . It was the draw and romance of the fugue state - to just _ stop _. Usually it crept up for stupid, everyday shit which would just pass by another person, instead of throwing a wrench in the works of their whole life like it did for him. Or, the more fun version, it would start up again for seemingly no reason at all and he’d have to wait it out a few days until he felt more normal again.

But here is a real, _ legitimate _ reason. There’s a sick relief to it. He tells himself it’s understandable, even fair, if he doesn’t want to get out of bed ever again this time. It’s not just giving in to his broken brain. This is probably the only time depression has been the absolutely most normal response to what he’s going through, since his mom left. 

The only things that cut though is a vague awareness of Eliot, and that every so often he needs to piss. Eliot, who had left him alone, which he’s thankful for, but he can still _ feel _ Eliot _ caring _ about him, which really ticks him off. Every damn day there’s oatmeal he lets get cold, and he keeps imagining the sad, worried look on Eliot’s face when he finds yet another bowl gone untouched, another glass of water that did nothing but collect dust.

_ Let me rot away _ , he thinks at him, furious and exhausted. _ Let me— Let me rest. Let me _stop. 

He thinks of how Arielle would be angry too. Angry he was giving up, just because she wasn’t around. She’d call him a sap almost every day, mostly teasingly but genuinely frustrated towards the end. Worried, he knew. Worried this exact scenario would happen. She wasn’t unlike Alice, in that way. It was hard, for her, for both of them, to love him, because of how much he made them worry. He thinks about Teddy. He knows Eliot took Teddy somewhere; knows Arielle’s family will be there for him, so he doesn’t even worry. Quentin allows himself not worrying about that, at least.

“Quentin.” A soft, tentative knock on the door. “Quentin, can we come in?”

“Go away, Eliot.”

Wait, _ we… _

“Papa, what’s going on?” 

Oh my God, _ Teddy _ . Teddy _ here _ , to see him like this. But Eliot wouldn’t… Eliot knows Quentin, better than anyone. He _ knows— _

“I think Daddy is tired. I think if we both go in it’ll be too much. Why don’t you go in? Just you.”

_ No. _

“Papa…”

“It’s okay sweetie, I promise.”

The door opens. Quentin throws a look over his shoulder, wanting to see them but not wanting them to see him. Eliot…

Eliot still takes his breath away, even now. He’s showered and shaved but his hair is still a little long and one, perfect stray ringlet falls into his eyes. It drives him crazy, he’s constantly fiddling with it, and Q loved to push it back for him. Loved the surprised, shy look it brought onto Eliot’s face, even if it _ pinged _ back to his forehead almost immediately. Almost always Eliot would let out a frustrated growl, and Q would try again and again and almost always Eliot would end up just kissing him. It _ hurts _ to think of that now. Thinking about any previous happiness _ hurts _ . When Arielle was here and _ alive _ . But also, now, he looks at that lone strand and wants to stroke it into the rest of Eliot’s hair, wants his fingers on Eliot’s scalp. Something in him wakes up, imagining the feeling. And the idea of being happy again, of feeling anything without Arielle, is _ wrong _and makes him feel so guilty he wants to vomit.

“Not now, Eliot.”

“It’s okay, Teddy,” says Eliot, eyes on Q but his hands are on Teddy’s back, nudging him forward. “Show Daddy your flower.”

_ “Eliot." _

“You brought it all the way from Aunt Hilda’s, didn’t you? Just to show him.”

Teddy stands in front, holding something Q can’t quite see. Teddy can’t understand what’s happening - he understands _ something _is happening, but it’s beyond his years. His hand goes tighter around the flower, a beautiful violet. Q knows it… it’s in the books. He wracks his brain for the name, he knows he knows the name, but then he catches Teddy’s sad, scared little face. 

Quentin thinks about how he must look. Christ, how he must _ smell. _ How the whole room must stink with his grief, and now his son is witness to it. “Eliot,” he says in a shaky, low voice, “take him, and _ leave me _.”

_ Leave me alone, or leave me entirely or leave me here to die. _

Q is always the softer parent - the _ sap _ . All disciplining was Arielle’s job, and occasionally Eliot’s. Q was the one Teddy ran to when he felt bad enough for what he did he needed to cry in someone’s arms about it. And he was the one Teddy ran to when he wanted a cuddle. It would have been easier if Q walked around in a permanent, arms-open-wide state, because that's basically his purpose as far as Teddy is concerned. Teddy always runs _ to him _, not away. 

But he does now. He pushes behind Eliot’s legs and runs outside. 

“Q.” What an awful, complicated thing Eliot’s voice is. Q wants to melt into it - and burrow further into the sheets, building a barrier from it. 

Eliot leaves too, without saying anything else. And there it is - relief, and an instant flood of hot regret. _ Let’s just rest _ , says the voice. _ All alone. This is what’s best, isn’t it? Isn’t it? _

He doesn’t argue.

*

“Papa, I don’t _ want _ to.” Teddy’s voice is a little muffled through the door, but Quentin makes it out clear enough as he blinks awake. He groans, feeling another yell rise in his throat that they are trying this _ again _ on the _ same day _ when it hits him it’s probably not. It might not even be tomorrow - he has no idea how much time has or hasn’t passed. “And Daddy doesn’t care.”

He can’t hear Eliot response - just the hushed, gentle tone of it - but he imagines he’s soothing Teddy to believe otherwise. But it doesn’t matter, it still splits Quentin’s heart in two. That Teddy could be so sure Q was done with him. That he didn’t _ care _ . Quentin didn’t used to understand his relatives who could watch a child babble endlessly (Quentin was more of a baby guy than a toddler guy) until he had his own little chatterbox and he hung onto his every word. What a miracle it was - that someone as broken and _ boring _ as Quentin could have been part of making this brand new little person who had _ opinions _and thoughts on just about anything. The idea of Quentin not caring about it wasn’t just hurtful, but utterly ridiculous.

_ Is it? Isn’t that what you want? You wanted everything to _ stop _ . _ You _ wanted to stop. _

It occurs to him how young Teddy is. Quentin doesn’t get to fuck up with him the way he does with his dad, or Julia, even _ Eliot _. People who have seen enough of the good in him to forgive him all the shit he puts upon them. In comparison to so many people in his life he holds dear, Teddy barely knows him. Of course he can believe that Q has stopped giving a shit. He remembers his mom. He remembers believing his mom had stopped giving a shit about him and that she never did anything to prove him wrong. 

And how if he doesn’t fix this, it’s exactly what will happen with Teddy.

He swings the door open himself. Teddy jumps, hiding behind Eliot and watching Q with big, wet eyes. “Teddy,” he tries, voice hoarse with disuse. Even Eliot flinches and Teddy cries out, burying his nose into Eliot’s leg. 

“Papa, I don’t want to,” he says again, pleading this time. 

Eliot’s eyes lock with Q’s, searching and apologetic. “Yeah,” he says to Teddy, but watching Q. “It’s okay. Why don’t you go play outside, then?”

Teddy glances nervously one last time at Quentin, then nods. Eliot touches the top of his head as he goes. 

_ Well _ , _ that’s that on that then. _ Quentin didn’t know he could somehow feel _ worse _ , but hey ho, life was full of surprises for him of _ that _ nature. Frankly, what was surprising was that he hadn’t learnt that lesson by now - things can _ always _ be worse. He lost his wife, he lost his _ son _, and he’d long since managed to push Eliot away. It’s only unfortunate for Eliot that he still had to work with Q on the quest, but that’s something they’d have to figure out at a later date. 

“Q, no.” Eliot grabs his wrist. “Don’t - he doesn’t mean it. He’s just worried. And scared. We’re _ both _ worried about you, but I’m just emotionally developed enough to word it without running away. Just about.”

“El, I’m fucking this up.” His throat is throbbing, choking on tears. “I’m fucking all of this up and all I can think is that I have no idea what we were thinking, bringing a child into the world. Giving that child a shitty, depressed dad. _ Fuck _. He’s just a kid, El. He deserves better than me. He— he doesn’t even know how bad he has it.” 

Eliot’s eyes flash with anger. “You’re right,” he says, dull. “He’s a kid. He doesn’t know any better. But that’s exactly it - he’s a _ kid _ . He doesn’t know _ any better. _ You’re the dad he has.”

_ Not the only dad _ , Q thinks. _ Not the dad that matters _ . _ The dad that isn’t fucking up. _

He must sense the self-deprecating nature of Q’s thoughts, because he softens. Softens the way he only does around Q, and occasionally Margo. The difference is Margo doesn’t need looking after the way Q does. “And he loves you _ unconditionally _ . All he’s talked about, in the last few days, is you. Not even Arielle. _ You _ . He _ worships _you, Q. Don’t let it go to waste.”

He’d forgotten. Forgotten how good it was to be looked after by Eliot - the only person who’d look at his baggage, and his burdens and open his hands up to help carry the load. And he didn’t _ understand _ it. Q has been told over and over he’s too much for people - too much _ work _ , too much to _ look after _\- but Eliot is still here. Sure, he doesn’t have much of a choice, but the way he’s looking at Q makes it feel like it’s okay that he’s this mess for Eliot to clean up. 

Fittingly, Eliot pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket - because even in Fillory, even in rags, he had some class, he had told Q. But Q had caught him once, using one to wipe Teddy’s face, Teddy trying to squirm away from him while he did. Then, once his face was all clean, Eliot had peppered it with kisses all over until Teddy was laughing, and throwing himself at Eliot. Eliot takes the handkerchief, made by hand from bits of spare fabric, and wipes away Q’s tears. 

“Go clean up,” he says. “Everything - clean your hair, brush your teeth, eat some fruit and come sit with us outside.”

It’s kind, understanding, but doesn’t leave room for argument. Just yesterday, he would have told Eliot (albeit weakly) to fuck off. Why should he look after himself? Ultimately, what the fuck gives him the right to move on? Isn’t that a disservice to Arielle? How can he clean his hair, brush his teeth and eat some fucking fruit like he hadn’t been too slow to see his wife dying? 

“She wouldn’t want you to live like this, Quentin.” Eliot hardly ever calls him by his full name, only when he’s angry or frustrated or trying to be cute. And this whole time he hasn’t invoked Arielle’s name or alluded to her once. It stings two-fold, but something ugly in Quentin wants to snap at Eliot. That he doesn’t get to fucking tell him what his wife would want, or how he should fucking live. He’d made it clear he had no interest in being with Q, not for real, that it would just be _ overthinking it _ so he signed away the rights to say anything about _ that _ a long time ago. It’s about to come out of him but Teddy’s voice carries through the hut, calling for Eliot, and Eliot reaches out to Q, touching him just in the crook of his elbow and all of the anger fizzes out of him. Much as he still wars with the idea of it, he does have a life here beyond Arielle. There are still people and things and experiences he wants to be alive for. Sitting outside with his son, with the man he— even as that man doesn’t—

Being, just _ being _, alive with them is… something, he realizes, he can’t give up. 

“We’re coloring,” Eliot says to him when he emerges outside. He could have gone through a few cleaning spells, but opted for using them to have as close to an old-fashioned shower as he could, wanting to feel water on his skin, through his hair, so it’s still wet. It’s a little chilly, but the feeling of it makes me feel cleaner. More like himself. And Eliot’s eyes are warm as they watch him.

Eliot had said ‘we’, but Teddy is the one hard at work on a bit on paper. His perfect little nose is scrunched up in concentration. “What, uh.” Q clears his throat. “What are we coloring?”

“A picture,” says Teddy, tilting his head down at the paper. 

“Oh,” Q says, exchanging charmed looks with Eliot at Teddy’s tone. “That’s neat. I can’t wait to see it. What’s it for?”

“For the mosaic,” Teddy explains with a little patient sigh, like his daddies are so slow, and this is his cross to bear in this life. He grabs the green chalk. “If we make it into a pattern and it works then you can take me to visit Earth, and Auntie Margo, and I can have cold cream.”

“Ice cream,” Eliot murmurs, pressing a kiss to Teddy’s head. 

“Would you like that?” Quentin asks, heart pounding. Then, “Going to Earth, I mean? You want to go to Earth?”

Teddy frowns again. Daddy, it seems, is still being stupid. Q loves it. Loves how smart Teddy knows he is. “I’ll be wherever you are.” 

Q’s breath leaves him all at once. “Of course,” Q says, sniffing. “Of course, duh. And you’ll love it, Teddy. There’s so much I want to show you. You can meet your Grandpa Ted - we named you after him.”

Teddy hums, going back to his drawing, no idea with how he’s just said everything Q needed. Eliot knows, beaming at Q, and at the tears escaping him. 

“Done!” Teddy cries, holding up the paper to himself to inspect it one last time. Then, he turns it around to show Q and Eliot, smiling proudly, ready for the praise he’s about to be showered in. 

Eliot’s face falls. Q doesn’t move.

“Oh,” Teddy says in a small voice. “Do you not like it? Is it bad?”

“No, no,” Eliot says quickly, putting an arm around him. “It’s beautiful, sweetheart. Is it our family?”

“Yeah,” Teddy says, arms stretched out. “That’s you guys, and Aunt Hilda, and Mama.”

“And Mama,” Eliot says, eyes flicking to Q’s.

Q can’t— he _ can’t— _

“I’ll add Grandpa Ted,” Teddy says to Q, reaching across the table to grab his hand. His eyes are huge, almost apologetic, and wondering. 

It snaps Q out of it. He laughs shakily. “Right, right, we have to have the whole family, right? Then it’ll be perfect. But it’s so good, Teddy. So good. You’re just like a real artist.”

Pleased, Teddy grins at him, showing all his baby teeth. His nose crinkles just like Arielle’s when he does. He waits until Teddy goes back to work, sketching out what he thinks Q’s dad might look like and Q excuses himself. He goes to the bench where Arielle used to sit when she was pregnant, watching Q and Eliot bicker over tiles and yell at them to grab her juice when it got annoying instead of amusing. 

He collapses in on himself, sobbing as quietly as he can. But Eliot’s followed him. 

“Q,” he says as he sits down, and Q had been so strong up until now, so resolved to not push himself on Eliot, but something about the gesture - of Eliot following him - weakens that resolve entirely. He falls into Eliot just as Eliot pulls him to his chest. 

“Oh Q, it’s okay,” he says to Q, stroking his hair. “I’m here.”

And Quentin weeps, his grief fresh and burning all over again. He weeps with relief, that he still gets to love his son. That somehow - magically, even - he’d been a part of making such a perfect, _ kind _ little guy, who forgives and loves him already. And that he still gets _ this_, that he hadn’t fucked it up spectacularly with Eliot, that yeah, even if Quentin wanted more, _ wanted—_ to get _ this_, was actually more than enough. He can’t believe how lucky he is. And he can't believe he still has enough luck to go round for him to be grateful for it.

His head is tucked under Eliot’s chin. Teddy is humming to himself as he draws - it’s some old pop song not strictly appropriate for his age but that one day Q and Eliot couldn’t get out of their heads so it stuck. Eliot’s own soothing murmurs are starting to break through and Q realizes he’s no longer crying. Actually, he’s thinking about how nice this all is. There’s no mosaic, no dead wife, no friends in the future to save. Eliot is still holding him, Teddy keeps singing and Quentin doesn’t move, wanting to stay in his moment of peace. He thinks if Eliot thinks Q’s been sufficiently comforted, that he’ll let go. 

*

Quentin wakes up with Eliot shaking him, saying his name. There’s a shout still lingering in Quentin’s throat, his heart pounding and-- _ oh _\--

“You were dreaming,” Eliot says, eyes sad and worried. Then, he sees his hands on Quentin and pulls them off, making Q feel like he’s suddenly naked. “Sorry-- I, uh, I’m sorry for waking you, it’s--”

“Did Teddy hear me?” 

Eliot shakes his head. “Dead to the world.”

_ Dead. _Q swallows and Eliot’s eyes widen, also realising what he said. “Jesus,” he hisses. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Q says, even as bile has risen in his throat. He has a sudden, urgent need to see Teddy _ now_, to _ check_, but he’s embarrassed to go get him in front of Eliot. It’s ridiculous, the rift that’s come up between them. He’s come in Eliot’s _ mouth _ for fuck’s sake, there’s not exactly a lot of other intimacy thresholds that they have left to cross. 

It’s another side-effect of having a witness to a downward spiral. When he’d leave Julia hysterical voicemails, and she’d eventually call him back, he would stare at his phone screen feeling like the biggest, most embarrassing piece of shit in the known universe and beyond. In the moment everything was heightened, like the end of the world was actually happening, and then when it wasn’t, he was left feeling stupid.

And he feels stupid now. Stupid that he wants Eliot to leave, but doesn’t have the guts to tell him. Even stupider that he actually doesn’t want him to leave at all, but asking that is even more impossible.

“You called me,” Eliot says. A beat. “I mean, you said my name. I’d heard you— before, when you were dreaming, but you’ve never said my name before. So I didn’t realize you were sleeping, at first.”

Actually, Quentin had not been embarrassed before. _ Now _ he’s embarrassed. “Oh,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Eliot eyes him with slight disapproval and incredulousness. “Q. You do not have to apologize,” he says, like this much is obvious. Like even though Eliot has barely _ touched him_, not since he held him when he cried, he has the right to call for him in his sleep. 

“Oh. I, um. Okay.” 

Eliot doesn’t move, at first. He stays, sat on the bed, looking at Q searchingly, then he blinks, once, smiling. “Well,” he says softly. “If you’re okay, I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

“Okay,” Q all but whispers, pulling the covers around himself. Eliot nods, and reaches the door before Q says, “Wait.”

“Yeah?”

There it is again. Bile. Completely ashamed of how weak he is, but says anyway, “I’m not. Okay. I’m not okay. Being in this bed, alone is… it’s awful.”

“Do you…” Eliot is looking at him with so much pity, and Q is feeling worse by the second. Either he doesn’t get what Q is saying, or he doesn’t— he doesn’t _ feel—_ “Do you want to swap? I can… I can stay here, and you can take the other bed?”

Doesn’t get what he’s saying, then. _ God_. What’s worse is his suggestion is sensible, totally doable, but Q is _ stupid _ and he’s _ needy_, and even though it’s the hardest, worst thing he makes himself do, he says, “No, I mean, can you just— can you stay?”

Eliot hesitates, the seconds that he does long and agonizing for Q. Who was he to— Eliot had made himself more than clear. Eliot cares about him, but that doesn’t mean he wants to or can entertain Q’s stupid, needy-- well, needs. “Never mind,” he says, retreating into the covers, turning over. “I’m sorry.”

Since when, after all, had Quentin Coldwater avoided being alone?

The bed sinks a little under Eliot’s weight, and Quentin’s hear drops to his stomach. “You don’t have to apologize, Q,” Eliot says softly, the words coursing relief through Quentin. He closes his eyes, feeling more at peace than he has in weeks, and tries to drift off. 

But sleep doesn’t come. It’s too much - being painfully aware of Eliot, just inches away; hearing his breathing; _ smelling _ him again, so good without any of his fancy perfumes or colognes; and the fact that he’s laying over the fucking covers, on his back, hands clasped on his stomach. How exactly is Quentin supposed to _ relax_?

“Jesus Christ,” he says, strained. “Eliot, can you _ touch me_?”

“What?” It comes out on a disbelieving breath.

“I mean,” Quentin says, heels pressed into his eyes. “You _ can _ touch me, if you want, I’m not— look, you can go.”

“No, no.” He can’t see Eliot but his hands go around Q’s wrist, pulling them off his face and trying to make him see. “Q, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize— I didn’t want to push you.”

“_God_, don’t _apologize _, Eliot.” Quentin screws his eyes shut. “Don’t apologize for not wanting to— for my own bullshit.”

“Quentin,” Eliot says, from somewhere up above him. “Whatever you need from me, however I can help: it’s yours. You should know that by now.”

Without meaning to, Q lets out a whine. Eliot’s hand slides into his. “Is this okay?” Eliot asks. Like Q is the one doing _ him _ a favor. Like Q hadn’t just begged him for human contact. 

“Yeah,” Q says. Wraps his fingers round Eliot’s. Breathes a little easier when Eliot squeezes back, instead of pulling away. Looking at Eliot, from what would have been his side of the bed, makes the world feels a little more stable than before. He’s not... _ replacing _ Arielle with Eliot. It doesn’t hurt any less, to keenly feel her absence, but it feels closer to something that he can live with. Carrying on her legacy could be the smallest, everyday things he could manage. Raising their son with as much love as he deserves. Sleeping on her side of the bed.

The loss has left him more vulnerable than he was equipped for. It’s why he’s here, in this bed, desperate for any way to hold onto one of the last people he had left. It’s why the mere idea of Teddy being _ dead to the world _threatened to throw him into a panic attack.

“I’m terrified of losing you,” he confesses to the ceiling. He keeps his voice low. Like saying it too loudly will make it more likely to happen. “I’m so scared that something is going to take you away, or Teddy. I don’t know how to stop being scared of that, and I don’t know how to live my life being scared of that.”

Eliot is quiet. Quentin counts the breaths each of them take. He doesn’t mind, really, that Eliot has nothing to say to that. Q knows the solution, deep down. Time. That’s all it will take. Time to stop being so immediately terrified of it every day, until finally it stops paralyzing him. 

Eliot’s hand falls out of his. It takes a lot for Q to remember to breathe, even as his fingers twitch, chasing the feeling. He doesn't have too much time to overthink what it means because Eliot, on his side, shuffles close to Q. He folds one arm under his head, and the other pushes a strand of hair behind Q’s ear. Q exhales shakily, resting his forehead on Eliot’s collarbone.

“Fortunately,” Eliot murmurs, “I’m gonna live forever, baby.”

It startles a laugh out of Q and his head rings with _ baby baby baby._ “El.” 

“I’m serious,” Eliot says, humor in his own voice. Pleased, he thinks, that he made Q laugh. “I’m not going to go gentle into that good night. I’m not going into that good night at all. So don’t even worry about that, okay? Let’s save our worrying for when Teddy starts dating, or wants to tattoo something. I’m going to be around for all of it.”

“You can’t promise that,” Q says, trembling, even as his heart feels calm. Feels full, just at the very idea.

“Well I’m promising.”

“Eliot.”

“_Quentin_,” Eliot teases, resting his chin on one hand. 

“Well that still leaves Teddy,” he points out. Watches as something shutters in Eliot’s expression, and feels guilty for pushing away Eliot’s lazy, indulging smile. _ And me_, he thinks, and feels a spike of panic. Weird, how one second you can want to die, and then later be terrified at the very idea of it. “Eliot, if anything happens to _ me—_”

“Stop,” Eliot says. “Fixating on it now won’t make it so we’ll be ready for if it happens. That’s _ if_, Q. Just because it scares you doesn’t make it more likely to happen than anything else.”

But Arielle is gone. And his dad has _ brain cancer_. His dad, who he hasn’t seen along with the rest of their friends, in _ years _now. The universe has taught him that the moment he relaxes into happiness is the best time to take something away from him. And this, _ this_, being under Eliot’s gaze again, this slow, delicious peacefulness, when he’s clawed his way back to feeling normal again, just feels too perfect to not be ripped away.

“Breathe, Q,” Eliot says, hand splayed on Quentin’s chest, which rises and falls with his short, short breaths. “Come on, breathe for me, sweetheart.”

It’s a huge effort, made easier by looking at Eliot, who _ isn’t _ panicking. Who’s patiently guiding him through longer inhales and exhales, until finally his breathing settles into something more manageable. He still feels a little shaky, but he doesn’t break eye contact with Eliot, at first. He can’t remember the last time Eliot looked at him this long, so direct and he wants it to last as long as possible. 

“I’m a mess,” he says, chancing it and turning his face into Eliot’s neck. Eliot doesn’t pull away. Or push him away, as it were. Even as Quentin keeps waiting for Eliot to peel him off of him, pat him on the head and tell him to have a good night. 

But Eliot’s arm comes around his back, not tugging him closer but prompting him to shuffle further into his chest. “You’re not,” he says. “Q, you’re not.”

“I’m…” Q pauses. “I’m a lot of work.”

“Not to me,” Eliot says, contradicting every therapist, every girlfriend and the only mother he’s ever had, even though Q has demanded the most of Eliot out of maybe any person in his life. “Not for me.”

A dry sob shudders its way up Q’s spine. Eliot holds him through it, hushing him. So, so gentle. So gentle that it makes another sob rise up in him, his chest pinched so tight with relief that it hurts. 

“Eliot?”

“Yes, baby?” When Q doesn’t answer, fist clenched in Eliot’s shirt, Eliot rocks him a little in his arms. “What, Q?”

Quentin leans back enough to, reluctantly, look Eliot in the face. Doesn’t lean back very far at all, because at this angle, they’re close enough to kiss. Q gets shy, dipping his head. “What is it?” Eliot says, tilting his head to still meet Q’s eyes. His voice is a little hoarse. His hair brushes against Q’s forehead. “You can tell me.”

“Can you… bring Teddy in?” Quentin forces out, a high, pained whine. 

Eliot blinks, huffs out a breathless, delighted laugh. Then it gets throatier, louder. He presses Q back to his chest, shaking with his laughter. 

“Eliot!” Q complains, even as the feeling of Eliot holding against him is…_ is… _

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right back,” Eliot drawls, pressing a brief, sloppy kiss to Q’s forehead before he swings his legs over the side of the bed. 

Fuck, he’s _ happy_, Q thinks, incapable of not beaming at the ceiling. He’s like, _ happy _happy, not just getting by, not just forcing himself to find the small moments of joy in their mostly boring, mostly same-y days. He’s re-building. He’s happier than he thought would ever be possible again when Eliot comes back in, a grumpy, sleepy Teddy in his arms, rocking him side to side. He’s murmuring soothing nonsense to the crown of Teddy’s head, carefully lowering the two of them to lay beside Quentin, under the covers. 

“Here’s Daddy, Ted.”

Teddy barely opens his eyes but he senses Q’s presence well enough to crawl over to him, into Q’s arms. Eliot is close behind, hugging from the other side. He has one hand on Teddy’s shoulder, his knuckles brushing Q’s chest. The two of them share one last look over the top of Teddy’s golden brown wisps of hair before Q closes his eyes, and falls asleep.

*

The least unique thing about Teddy as far as standard child behavior goes, is that he’s a ridiculously early riser. It was bad enough when he had to rush in, which he had _ no _ qualms about, but when he’s _there_, _ in _the bed… well, it’s just better, more convenient access to jumping on the bed and getting his daddies up. Or, at least one of them. Q, now that he’s found sleep again, usually doesn’t get up till later. 

Usually.

“Shh, Teddy, please.” Eliot is just outside the door, which is still open, probably negotiating Teddy into a jacket. “Daddy’s sleeping, let’s let Daddy sleep, yeah?”

“I’m awake,” Quentin calls out. Teddy’s head appears in the doorway. Behind him, an exasperated Eliot releases him and, elated at his success, Teddy climbs on the bed.

“I wanted to give a goodbye kiss,” Teddy explains.

Eliot leans against the door frame, arms crossed. “And _ I _wanted you to sleep more.”

“Well, I woke up with you talking so _ you’re _actually the one who woke me up first.” Quentin stretches out on the bed, then grins as Teddy throws himself into his arms, curling himself around his tiny, best body. 

Well, second best. He looks quickly at Eliot, who’s still watching from afar, smiling and with that familiar look, like he’s trying to memorize this moment. 

“Unbelievable, this is the thanks I get,” Eliot says, ignored by both of them and seeming totally happy to be.

“Are you excited?” Quentin asks, just to see Teddy’s palpable excitement reach even higher heights.

It’s Teddy’s first day at daycare, or Fillory’s answer to ‘make the children talk to each other and some supervising grown-ups so the the guardian grown-ups can have some peace and quiet’, which potentially answers for the more charged air between Q and Eliot. For Q, anyway, certainly. 

Teddy is beside himself with excitement. Q didn’t mean to almost miss it but he’s just been sleeping so fucking well, and it’s been heavenly. Even the farewell, from the warmth and comfort of his bed, is ideal.

“Yes,” Teddy says sagely, or tries to, because he’s taking this whole idea of a new social scene very seriously, which includes, apparently, having a more mature, restrained outlook.

“You’re going to have so much fun.” Quentin strokes both hands along Teddy’s face, pushing back his hair. “And then, you can come home and tell us all about it.”

“But first, we have to _ go_,” Eliot reminds them. “Come on, then, Teddy. Goodbye kiss, as demanded.”

They have no idea where he learnt it, but Teddy’s kisses are always accompanied by a loud _ mwah_. He grabs Quentin’s face in his tiny palms, pressing a long, firm kiss to his cheek. Quentin cradles him again, closing his eyes and wanting it to last just a little longer, then pulls away to return the favor. Teddy scoots backward off the bed, into Eliot’s waiting arms, but refuses to be picked up. “Papa,” Teddy chides. “You too!”

It gives them both pause. Eliot looks at Q, expression solemn, and _ fuck_, Quentin doesn’t know how to school his into something that _ doesn’t _ broadcast his feelings of _ Jesus, please, please, please_. Eliot leans over him, the kiss on Quentin’s cheek a whisper of a thing, then, when Quentin turns his head, it leaves Eliot hovering over his lips, not quite touching. Quentin holds his breath, not moving, because this so exactly what he wanted that he didn’t dare wish it for a second, and maybe if he holds still Eliot will stop treating him like glass and say, _ eh_, _ what the heck, _ and kiss him and Quentin won’t even care that he has to pretend like it doesn’t mean anything. He tries to keep his eyes open, on Eliot’s face, as the hesitation shifts into something— _else_, maybe?— but he can’t, just this brief closeness is too much. He also tries to respect Eliot’s boundaries, and let Eliot be the one to come to him if he wants, but it’s too long, with Eliot this close, and once upon a time there were mornings and evenings, in the moments with Eliot crowded against him, where he’d lean in and steal a kiss without thinking. He _ tries _ to just relax, calm his restless, needy, fucking heart but— _but— _

Eliot pulls away from the kiss with the same expression he did a lifetime ago - well, this lifetime but literally fucking years ago and before Teddy’s actual lifetime - on the mosaic, entirely too shocked for someone who Quentin _ radiates _ want for every time he’s around. Surprised, and not… repulsed, or pitying, like Quentin would have predicted and bet on. Which is interesting to say the least.

“Bye bye, Daddy!” Teddy says brightly, oblivious to the crisis the grown-ups are having. It’s time to go play. “See you later.”

“Bye,” Quentin says, dazedly, because Eliot is still looking at him.

“See you later,” says Eliot, clutching Teddy’s hand in his when Teddy reaches up for it. Neither of them moves. Teddy tugs on his hand and Eliot, startled, looks down like it’s a surprise to find Teddy there. 

Quentin hears the two of them singing Earth nursery rhymes on their way out, at Teddy’s request, until their voices fade into the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. He puts in face in Eliot’s pillow. 

*

He can’t fall back asleep, so he goes to work on the mosaic. Then he can’t even fucking begin to think of a new pattern to try out, and does not have the brainpower to sit and put tiles down at random, because he just kissed _ Eliot Fucking Waugh _for the first time in far, far too long and Eliot Fucking Waugh— kissed him back? Kind of? Then, like a heroine in a regency drama, if he thinks about it too much he has to lie down. So he does just that, right on top of the tiles he has managed to place. He curls in on himself, blood humming thinking about the inconsequential peck of a kiss he’d gotten that morning, and the countless others. The idea that… maybe there could be more, again. Maybe he just has to… 

Ask.

He doesn’t mean to fall asleep - again, but for so long sleep wasn’t coming at all, he doesn’t know how to not given in when it arrives now - but it happens, the late morning sun and the thought of kissing Eliot keeping him warm.

“Uh, Q?”

He jerks awake, heart racing, but then sees Eliot. Eliot, kneeling beside him and touching his shoulder with worry all over him. Eliot, retreating his hand when Quentin wakes up which just won’t fucking do at all. He grabs Eliot’s wrist. “Please,” he says, mind still cloudy with sleep and not quite able to ask for what he’s asking.

“Are you okay?” Eliot says, turning over his arm so he can hold Quentin’s hand. It feels different, outside, in the open, but also _ here_, on the mosaic, where it had started. The thing that, before Arielle and before Teddy, grounded them here. But also where Quentin had took a risk, and made everything as complicated and wonderful as it had been.

It’d been a reaction to Arielle, at first. Well. In a sense. After a year of every day thinking this could be _ it_, they could solve the mosaic any day now, it had more or less trained Quentin to neglect a lot of… bodily requirements. Nothing much beyond an awkwardly long time bathing, unable to meet Eliot’s eyes after. It was an unexpected but blessed thing that Eliot didn’t crack any jokes about it, but Quentin figured, sexual savant that he was, that this involuntary dry spell was much harder on him. It took seeing Arielle kiss Lunk and stir something unhappy in him to realize - _ shit _ , he was _ horny. _ He needed to get _ laid_. Occasionally to his own detriment, sex was excellent at getting him out of his own head. And also, these days, his routine included a lot of seeing Eliot is various states of undress, sometimes after a long day of manual labor under the sun - curls sweaty and in disarray, shirt half-opened and sweat dotted along—

Well. Ahem. 

He figured Eliot would be game, even if Q wouldn’t be his first choice, or any choice, under different circumstances. They’d technically already screwed once, to regrettable success, making it less likely Eliot would completely turn him down. They could be there for each other, for this impersonal, human need. 

But then Eliot, after dinner, took Quentin outside. Had him sit on the blanket he’d just finished making from scraps of fabric he’d gathered from here and there, and handed him a tankard of beer and the torches burned around them. Said, “Happy anniversary, Q,” soft and content even if they had no end to the quest in sight, just a vague promise that it wouldn't be three hundred and sixty five more days, and Quentin was happy, _ so _ happy and _ holy shit_, he realized, he didn’t just want to have sex, didn’t just want _ someone_. He wanted _Eliot_. That… raised the stakes, somewhat. Now it wasn’t just a case of _ hey, touch my dick, I’ll touch yours, it doesn’t have to mean anything. _ Goddammit, now he was _ nervous_. 

When he had leant up to kiss Eliot, with a timid _hey_, he had felt it in his whole body - like it had been waiting for his stupid brain to realize what he wanted, _ finally_. Or maybe it was the muscle memory of that night. The night they still hadn’t talked about or that the flashes Quentin remembered hadn’t been as vague as they were initially for a long time now. And when Eliot kissed him back, all he could think was _ oh_, thank _ God_. 

It only happened a few more times after that, even as now_ \- now - _ Quentin had even clearer memories of how Eliot looked when he came, or sounded, face pressed against the side of Quentin’s as he stroked them both together. Eliot was so ready to take the lead, which was good not just because it allowed Quentin to freely lose his whole mind, but because his brain turned to mush in those moments, and wouldn’t be able to handle the concept of ‘hand-to-dick’. He’d do more, obviously - he _ wanted _ \- more but Eliot had said ‘no overthinking’, so Q didn’t have the heart to push any further than what they fell into each time. Why look a gift horse in the mouth when the gift was _ this_, Eliot’s teeth on his ear as he looked up at a starry sky and fell apart in Eliot’s hand? And each time it was Quentin who initiated, saying, “No overthinking,” as a disclaimer, and really, for once in his goddamn life, Quentin Coldwater _ wasn’t _ overthinking. Since that first taste (uh, somewhat literal) it had _ consumed _him, fucking Eliot (figurative) was all he wanted and could think about and somehow he managed to restrict himself to only giving in when the idea of going one more night without being touched by him would drive him insane. Not overthinking, not at all. The opposite.

What it means is that it’s still fucking hard for Quentin to feel like Eliot actually wants him. That he doesn’t just have a sense of wanting to look after Quentin, as a friend or forced-co-quester or… _ or._ Quentin fucking _ wished _ it was _ ‘or _’, but there was no way to know. Not when he had to beg Eliot to touch him. Not when Teddy slept with them in bed.

But now, with Eliot's hand in his, Quentin hadn’t begged for it. Teddy is at daycare, probably rattling off botanical facts to another toddler who just wants to play dragons. And yeah, there is a chance that Eliot is taking pity on him, that Teddy could get homesick and come back any moment, face streaked with tears as he holds onto the hand of some other parent guiding him back, but for once, just in this moment, Quentin chooses to believe in good things and the value in _ wanting _them, and he kisses Eliot because he misses it in that moment more than anything in his life.

Even taken off guard, Eliot doesn’t kiss badly. His soft, perfect mouth yields under Quentin’s with a soft, perfect noise, questioning, that while delicious to feel through his whole body, rattling his heart in his chest, Quentin elects to ignore it in favor of kissing deeper, _ more_. 

As Q rises off the mosaic, lining up his body to Eliot’s, Eliot catches up. His arms go round his back, not quite lifting up but holding Quentin in place. Quentin wants to wrap himself around Eliot, but that would involve breaking the kiss to rearrange himself, or at least give Eliot orders. Torn, he whines in Eliot’s mouth at not being close enough, which somehow Eliot interprets as _ put me in your lap_, and obliges. Arms around Eliot’s neck, Quentin breathes easier.

“Q,” Eliot says, between kissing, and then stopping altogether when it’s evident it’s going to take a lot more than that to distract Quentin from his current objective. “Have you... needed this?” 

It’s curious, and maybe a little guilty. Like this is one of many chores of _ looking after Quentin Coldwater _ that Eliot has been neglecting. Like he should have been issuing handjobs for the good of the quest, their co-parenting and, in a grander sense, all of magic. 

For a moment he doesn’t know how to answer. Yeah, one of his spouses is dead and he misses the intimacy, but it’s not— it’s _ more _ than that, obviously. This isn’t a _ life partner _ itch to scratch, nor would it be solved by going out to an inn and picking a stranger to get him off. It isn’t— it isn’t even about _ Arielle _.

“I’ve needed _ you _ , Eliot,” says Quentin, because fuck coy, fuck demure, when he’s laid across Eliot’s warm, strong thighs. “I need _ you _.”

Watching as Eliot’s face changes, into something unsure, Quentin’s heart sinks when Eliot stands, thinking he’s ruined it all, needy Quentin Coldwater _ needing _ too much, wearing people out with how much he needed them to give him to start to feel loved. But Eliot yanks him up with him, framing Quentin’s face in his hands, serious and heady. “Then,” he says firmly, “we are doing this in a fucking bed.”

Quentin would quite literally do it against any possible surface and just in the walk to from the mosaic to the shack he makes Eliot take several detours, making out against the door frame, up on the dinner table. The wall just next to the bed. Each time Eliot is the one to laugh, and say, “Come on,” or, a pleased, exasperated, _ “Quentin,” _ but when Q makes him press him into a corner of the shack, he doesn’t exactly complain outright. Quentin grips Eliot so close that Eliot has to lift him off the ground with his telekinesis to get him to move. Feeling very clever, Quentin grins, wrapping his legs around Eliot's waist - who snorts, says, "All right, Coldwater," and walks them to the bedroom.

It must be said it is a pitiful bed. They fall into it but it’s not soft, or even especially warm unless you’re under covers, or pressed to someone else. Shivering, Quentin does break a kiss to nuzzle his face in Eliot’s neck, a hand under Eliot’s shirt to chase the heat of his chest. With some gentle coaxing, Eliot manages to wrangle Quentin out of his shirt, holding him when Quentin rubs against Eliot to warm up again. 

Very obviously he’s not going to last long. One of Eliot’s hands goes to hold Quentin’s cock, just there in his palm. Quentin goes boneless at the feeling of it, so familiar and dear. “Yeah,” says Eliot, nonsensical, and kisses him, stroking slow and easy, fingers brushing Q’s hair from his face as he lays back. Quentin’s hand goes to Eliot’s chest, feeling for his heartbeat. 

“I’m here, Quentin,” he says, knowing. “I’m going to look after you, baby. I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna, I promise, I _ promise_, sweetheart.”

“I don’t--_ hng_.” Quentin’s breath stutters in his throat as Eliot squeezes, just so. “I don’t need you-- to look after me, I’m, oh _ God_, _ Eliot _…”

“I know,” Eliot says, kissing his cheek, “I know baby, but let me anyway, won’t you? Won’t you let me?”

“Okay!” Quentin chokes out, close, too close, and everything Eliot is doing feels so nice, everything he’s _ saying—_

“Okay,” says Eliot, gentle in that way of his that should be patronizing, but actually drives Quentin fucking wild. “Okay, thank you. Thank you, baby. You’re so good, _ Jesus, _ look at you.”

Quentin opens his eyes, wanting to see how Eliot is looking at him. For all his steady talking, Eliot is pushed up on an elbow, watching from above, mouth open on a ghost of a laugh, both tender and precise in how he watches Q react exactly how he knows he will.

“Are you gonna come?” Eliot asks, changing up his rhythm, and Q knows Eliot knows he is, but Quentin nods, putty in Eliot’s hands, moaning quietly, because, well, Eliot likes noises. Likes talking. “Yeah?”

Distantly Quentin wishes he could be more present, that he could rattle off some sexy shit for Eliot but all he can handle is _ ah, ah, Eliot_, hoping Eliot understands. Hoping it’s good enough for Eliot, because he’s nowhere near as good anyway, even when he isn’t floating out of his own body with pleasure. “I’m… gonna,” he says, clipped, trying to last long enough to get the words out before he does.

Eliot breathes out. “Yeah, yeah, you are. It’s okay, come for me, honey, please, _ please _.”

Unsteady, Quentin threads his fingers into Eliot’s hair, up from the nape of Eliot’s neck, _ tight_, the other clutching his shoulder. “That’s it,” says Eliot, babbling into his skin and Quentin hasn’t even touched his dick yet, “yeah, there you go, for me, for me.” 

He slumps in Eliot’s arms, and then back to the bed. Or maybe Eliot lowers him, he’s still not really in his brain. He blinks up at Eliot, then says, “Oh no.”

“What?” Eliot says, pausing in lazily playing with Quentin’s fingers. 

“Your— your shirt.” Covered in Quentin’s cum. _ Fuck_, Eliot did all of that with his _ clothes still on_, and he hadn’t even noticed. Eliot too, looks down, a little surprised to find his shirt still on too, which is flattering for Quentin and the singular focus he brings out in Eliot. 

“Oh.” He leans back, pulling it over his head and throwing it on the floor. “There, all good.”

Shyness gone from him, Quentin asks for Eliot back with grabby hands, who obliges with a giddy, breathless laugh. “Oh Q,” he says, mouthing at Quentin’s jaw. “So needy, so perfect for me, aren’t you?” 

Quentin turns in Eliot’s arms, wanting to look at him but wanting to stay close and finding a way to position himself to get both. He’d been told his whole life he was needy - as a boyfriend, as a son, even as a patient. That he needed to just buckle up and face the world like everyone else, and stop demanding it be something it wasn’t, even if what it was made him miserable. He’d never been called it, and told it made him wanted, let alone _ perfect. _

So. “Your turn,” he says, seeking out Eliot’s lovely cock. “Oh, hey you.”

Delighted, Eliot grins, lounging back against the pillows, his arms folded behind his head. He closes his eyes and hums, languid, as Quentin strokes him. After Quentin has just been driven out of his mind with want, this simply won’t do. He needs to take it up a notch. 

Quentin moves away and Eliot’s eyes snap open, reaching for him - “Q?” - until he sees Quentin sliding further down the bed. “Q,” he says, “you don’t, um, have to…”

“Yep, I don’t,” says Quentin before sealing his mouth over the head. For a few moments it’s just Quentin, bobbing his head, blood rushing through his ears and Eliot’s moans over them. Eliot’s hands scramble to find something to hold onto, slapping along Quentin’s shoulders. Too gentle.

Quentin pulls off. The _ pop _ is slick, delicious. “Hold my hair?” he says to Eliot, who nods with an open mouth. 

“Sure, baby, no problem— _oh_.” 

It’s not long before his hand in Q’s hair tightens into a fist, involuntary. Quentin whines, because _ there_, _ there _ it is, but Eliot falters, letting the strands slip through his fingers. “Oh shit, Q, I’m—”

“If you fucking apologize, I swear to God I am never sucking your dick again,” he snaps. Doesn’t give Eliot the chance to respond. Eliot’s grip comes back, and Quentin’s shoulders droop with pleasure. He feels Eliot sit up. Eyes dark, he massages Quentin’s jaw so it opens more, taking more of Eliot in, who gasps and shudders on an _ Oh… _

The first time Q had done this, he’d been out of his mind with emotions flowing more freely than they ever had in his life, and that included the feeling of wanting to drop to his knees whenever Eliot was around. It had been a frantic, desperate scramble to get Eliot’s pants off of him, who had mostly been watching and vaguely present while Q got Margo off (or, let’s be real, Margo had dictated how and when Q would get her off). It had been obvious Eliot was expecting having to guide Q into some queer experimentation, and wasn’t really prepared for Quentin to put his mouth on Eliot like it had been killing him not to blow him. He had come with a, _ Jesus, Quentin, holy shit _ , half-shouting, half-laughing, much sooner than any of them thought, like it was _ cute_, until Quentin sat in his lap, and then Eliot focused biting and kissing Quentin’s chest and mouth. Eliot still treats Quentin like it would have to be a negotiation to get him to touch him - _ pin the blindfolded straight boy on the penis, _or whatever - so Quentin, stubborn as he is, makes sure to double-down and look Eliot in the eye. 

Taking in that hot, hard weight, Quentin could do this forever. Could definitely do it until Eliot comes, but he’s not ready for this to be over. And he _ is _ready for something else.

“I want you in me,” Quentin says, and though Eliot looks like he’s been knocked on the head with a heavy object, he nods feverishly, reaching around to feel into Quentin’s ass and pull him off at the same time. On his knees, Quentin moves closer, into Eliot’s lap, thrusting into the feeling while Eliot just watches, feeling drunk on power and want and _ magic_, honestly, once Eliot moves through tuts to loosen him quicker. The sensation is odd, and while he doesn’t apologize, Eliot does make sorry, soothing noises into his kisses, distracting Quentin from the unpleasant side of it. 

“I know, I know,” he says, because yeah, he probably has done this spell before. Probably has had it done on him. Q doesn’t love this idea, and sinks down onto Eliot with purpose, wanting to drive away any thoughts of anyone else, before or after this. 

Which, ow, maybe not the brightest idea he’s had, Eliot is fucking _ big,_ but also the burn is hot white, takes away everything else, and the noise Eliot makes, like he’s dying, is very satisfying. “_Quentin_,” he says, choked, surprised and pleased, and _ Jesus, _ Quentin wants to _ move, _but—

“Gimme—sorry, just two—I need—“ 

“Whatever you need,” Eliot says, hands dancing all over his hips, laying back against the bed and Quentin would love nothing more than to rock his hips so Eliot can hit the pleasure inside him but his body isn’t quite agreeing with him. Desperate for closeness anyway, he folds in on himself, resting on Eliot’s chest. Very obviously Quentin has a dick in his ass, but he kind of forgets for a moment. It’s just quiet, and nice, to take a second and feel Eliot there with him. Breathing heavy, but patient. Quentin gives a tentative roll of his hips, now that the initial shock has passed, hearing and _ feeling _ Eliot punch out a breath sparks the pleasure in Quentin again. 

He sits up, looking down at Eliot and finding his expression utterly wrecked, like he’s a hair’s width away from falling apart and holding it together just for Quentin. Incredibly sexy as it is, it stops him, filled with fondness for _ this,_ this moment, the _ them _ of it all. 

“What?” Eliot says, seeing it, panting.

“I am so,” Quentin says, reaches down and cups Eliot’s face, feeling the curls in his hands, “_ fucking _ glad it was you and me on this quest.”

Eliot scoffs. “God, I know. Otherwise you might be fucking Hoberman right now.”

Quentin laughs, indulging in Eliot’s playful grin, and how ridiculous, that they’re sat here giggling instead of fucking, and _ happy_, freaking _ happy_. But. Quentin still says, “Eliot, this quest just meant I had nowhere else to run to convince myself otherwise. I wanted to sleep with you so badly that I did it when I had a girlfriend.”

Eliot stills. His hands on Quentin stop, then pensively he rubs circles in Q’s hips. “I… I didn’t know if we’d ever talk about that.”

And probably not when he was, you know, still inside Quentin. 

“We don’t have to,” Quentin says. But Eliot, it seems, is waiting. “I mean, I didn’t regret it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“You didn’t? I seem to remember a different… vibe when she caught us in bed.” 

Quentin closes his eyes, remembers Eliot’s arm possessive across him. How it sent a flair of arousal up in him before he saw Alice at the foot of the bed and it all came crashing down. “I hated that I hurt you. And Alice didn’t deserve it. But I didn’t _ regret _ it. I didn’t wish I hadn’t. I’d wanted you… for so long, and I got to have you. Even if it was just one night. I wouldn’t have traded that for anything, Eliot.”

Quentin opens his eyes when he hears a pained sound. Eliot’s eyes are screwed shut. “What?”

“Q. You’re going to make me come.”

“Really?” Q is delighted. “This— is doing it for you? Just this?” Not moving, not fucking. Just. _ Feelings _.

“I’d rather not discuss it at this time.” Terse. Definitely about to come. _ Fascinating _.

“Okay El,” Quentin smiles, leaning down to shift the angle of Eliot’s cock, and rolling his hips again. “We don’t have to talk.”

“_Q.” _

And then for all Quentin had his moment in the sun, of being cool and suave and top-y, the feeling of Eliot pushing up his hips to meet his rhythm quickly melts away any of that. His renewed arousal is dizzy, hurts almost. Relating back to his initial point, “I love this,” he breathes out, voice hitched, “oh my God, _ Eliot_. _ Ah! _”

“Yeah?” Eliot says. “That’s right, baby, I’m here, I’m here for you. Q, you’re so good.”

Quentin has this sudden need to be kissing Eliot as he comes, surging forward to do so. He can’t believe even for a second, he was gonna give this up. That he was gonna lay in bed forever and never have this. For real, knowing Eliot wants it as much as he does, feeling Eliot’s moans in his ear as they grab each other and stay close, breathing too heavy to keep kissing. “You’re enough,” he says, not sure where he pulls it from but he remembers it from his catatonic state. Remembers feeling baffled that Eliot could see him, the way he was, and feel like he was _ missing out _on Quentin. Couldn’t begin to imagine what it was Eliot was yearning for. 

Maybe it was this. Maybe Eliot knew it would be like this, the simultaneous coming together and falling apart. Eliot, there to catch him. “You and me. You’re— this is— _enough _ , Eliot, this is everything, do you have any _ idea—_”

“Q, _ Jesus Christ _ ,” Eliot whines, honest-to-God whines, and comes with two more erratic thrusts, face pressing almost painfully into Quentin’s shoulder. It’s what finally triggers Quentin’s own, feeling Eliot spill _ fucking inside me_, already most of the way there by the time Eliot, mouthing at the skin he can find almost absently, strokes Quentin until he comes too.

Eliot had pulled away to watch Quentin fall over the edge, expression glazed and intense. Locking eyes with him makes Quentin’s throat hoarse. “Need… off,” he explains lamely, wriggling his hips, again being forced to give into the needs of his body but not his heart.

“Yeah, sure thing, honey,” Eliot says, helping him. Quentin’s knees are shaking and buckle with Eliot not holding him up, so Eliot pulls out and gently gets Quentin down on the bed next to him. Quentin’s already almost closing his eyes, enjoying the pleasant soreness radiating through his whole body. Eliot leans over him, brushing his hair out of the way, and Quentin shivers. It’s nice, unspeakably so. But he can feel Eliot wanting something to say.

“You okay? We got a little chatty at the end there.” 

There it is.

“Eliot, I just had possibly the best orgasm of my life. My brain is spooling out of my ears. I’m great. Are _ you _okay?”

Eliot smiles. “Back at ya,” he says, not quite as serenely, dismissive as he thinks Eliot means for it to be. 

“Do you… I don’t know, have any questions? Concerns? ...Feedback?”

“You want me to ask for the manager?” Eliot’s hands travel up and down Quentin’s sides. A distraction tactic. 

Not distracting enough. _ “Eliot _.”

“It’s just… ‘you and me’,” Eliot says, with a sigh. Quiet, eyes big with worry.

“What about it?” He turns to face Eliot more directly. 

“Q, it’s okay… I can be here for you, I _ will _be here for you, no matter what. You don’t have to… say that stuff for me. I know you miss—”

He laughs, a sad sound, reacting at something in Quentin’s face. “It’s okay, baby, really.”

“Eliot, I meant it.”

“And the fact that I was in the middle making you come with _ the best orgasm of your life _ had nothing to do with it?” It comes out dripping in gentle sarcasm. Walls being put back up.

“El,” he says, grabbing Eliot’s face. Tries to pour as much firmness in his voice as he can manage right now, still dizzyingly wrung out. “I meant it. You’re who I want. To solve the mosaic, raise our son with, fuck like teenagers when he’s not around. All of it, like you said right? I’m sorry I checked out for… a while—”

“Q, my God don’t apologize for _ mourning _ your _ wife—” _

“—but I’m _ in _ this, I promise. _ This _ isn’t just… _ enough _ . You, and Teddy, and our life, our _ family… _It’s more than I ever... thought I would get in my life. If I had, I probably wouldn’t have been in such a rush to end it before I’d even graduated college.”

Eliot doesn’t like those jokes, usually, but it’s packed in a sentence so filled of other things which seem to confound him that instead of telling him off, that Eliot gets a pensive, reluctant furrow in his brow. The open, unrestrained vulnerability in it takes Quentin’s breath away. He hates how much this is a surprise to Eliot. He needs— Quentin needs to be _ better_. He needs to find a way, every day, so that Eliot never doubts this, Eliot deserves to feel everything that he makes Q feel—

Eliot’s forehead in on his. “Hey now, where is that mind going?”

Quentin shakes his head. “I’m okay. I just— do you get it? Now?”

“I do, baby,” Eliot murmurs, moving Q’s head under his chin. 

“Promise?” He can’t meet Eliot’s eyes. Says the word into his chest.

Q feels Eliot’s wide smile against his temple. “Oh, I promise,” he says, with impossible tenderness and reassurance, and Quentin lets himself feel cared for. He was just fucked within an inch of his life, after all. He can take a moment to rest. “My goodness, aren’t you sleepy.”

“Mm.” Quentin stretches out against Eliot’s body, relishing that twinge of _sore_ and all of it being wrapped in the warmth of Eliot’s arms. “Your fault.”

“Hm, very sorry for your troubles,” Eliot says, sounding very pleased with himself. About as pleased as Quentin, but Q still pinches his side for good measure. Important to keep Eliot in check. That’s the only way the thing is gonna be sustainable.

At the thought, something clicks in Quentin’s mind. He pulls back. “You know, if you… meet someone else, that’s okay too.” He says it even as it isn’t, the idea of losing Eliot, _this _Eliot which he can’t help but feel is _his._ But Eliot nudged him towards Arielle, was so kind and so supportive. It wouldn’t be fair to at least not make Eliot feel like if he wanted to, he could. Should, even. He thinks it would hate it even more to know that Eliot was holding himself back, just to fulfill some half-promise he’d made to Q and his dead wife. “We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. I don’t want you to feel… tied down.”

Eliot looks down at him, apparently torn between offence and utter confusion and preemptive hurt. “I thought this was enough.”

“You are, for _ me_. But I’m not under any delusions that _ you _… might not need more. I know you’ll be here for me, but that doesn’t mean you have to deny what makes you happy if there’s… someone else. We’d make it work.”

“I think you're overestimating the queer dating scene in regency Fillory.”

“Eliot—”

“_Quentin_,” Eliot says, voice unsteady. “Seriously. That’s not going to happen.” Said like, _ drop it. _

“Oh. I mean, okay.” Something like relief blooms in Q’s chest. Eliot… all his after all. “I mean, good.”

Eliot shakes his head, pressing a kiss to the crown of Quentin’s head. Still surprisingly… shaky, almost, with anger or fear or something else and Quentin finds himself saying, “Sorry, if that was a stupid thing to say. I just… you know.”

“It was very stupid,” is all Eliot responds, simple, combing through Quentin's hair with something like forgiveness. “But I like ‘em pretty.” 

There are several other thoughts fluttering around Quentin’s stomach, questions and clarifications and _ declarations _ that he works very hard to keep on the tip of his tongue, feeling them want to burst out at the proximity of Eliot and his hands on his scalp. He waits out his thundering heart, _ happy_, and lives in the content silence instead.

“Want to go work on the mosaic?” Eliot asks after a while. 

“Mm, not at all.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Eliot slides down the bed, so he’s further than Quentin. Wraps his arms around Q’s middle, not unlike the night they’d first fucked, with Margo. Quentin curls around it; wants to reshape everything around that point of connection. The beauty of all life can wait, can’t it? How could it be more important, more special than this?

“We should get dressed, though, before Teddy comes home and we traumatize him.” 

“In a minute.” It’s mumbled against Quentin’s stomach.

“Yeah. In a minute.” 

*

“Good morning Daddy!” Teddy calls out, and Q hears him running out of his room and heading straight outside. 

“Teddy, breakfast will be done in _ five minutes_,” he says, still focused on pouring the pancake batter. There’s a sing-sing _ okay! _before the door softly swings shut. Quentin grabs the blackberries, waiting for the telltale bubbles of air to burst through so he can throw them in. It'll take longer than five minutes, but it's not like Teddy can tell time yet anyway.

“Good morning Daddy,” Eliot hums, wrapping himself around Quentin from behind. It kind of gets in the way of the cooking, but he’s happy to melt in Eliot’s arms with the smell of hot honey wafting around them.

“You know, I always thought you were much more Daddy,” he says, absently, then turns in his hold to face Eliot. Hopes for the reaction he’s looking for. The one he'd wanted to provoke.

“Always? You _ thought _ ? Why _ Quentin, _” Eliot says, but his eyes, pupils blown wide, betray his cool nonchalance. They’re glued to his lips.

“Does that make Daddy happy?” He grins, pulling Eliot forward to that he crowds Q against the counters - because hey, he hadn’t been lying. 

“Q,” Eliot breathes out, all wonder. He thumbs at Quentin’s chin fondly - which is insane, because Eliot’s the one with the sexiest little dimple on his. “Did I dream you up?” 

“If you were, how would asking me help?” Q manages to get out somehow, while his brain just thinks the exact same, that he’s been lucky for so long - lucky enough to have magic, to have Eliot as a guide, to be on this quest with him, to get to have this _ life. _ It turns out this is entirely the right thing to say, because Eliot’s expression breaks into breathless, almost pained joy. He presses his forehead to his for a beat, eyes closed, in a gesture that feels oddly private. Taking a moment for himself. Quentin feels barely part of it until Eliot is kissing him, really kissing him, hard but easy; indulgent and familiar. This languid, happy moment that Quentin wants to live in forever. The pancakes are definitely going to burn but who cares, the first few always turn out like shit anyway.

From behind them Teddy runs into, immediately making horrified, disgusted sounds and, “Daddy, Papa, seriously, stop it, I want to show you something! Ugh, you guys, you’re being _ annoying_!” 

Quentin takes his time pulling away, wanting to keep kissing Eliot’s smile but at the time wants to go outside with Teddy, and wants to wake up tomorrow, and after that, and after that. And can’t wait for all of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @ ameliajessica. hmu anytime babes. hope you enjoyed!


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